Carphone dives £29.2m into red

ONE in every four High Street mobile phone shops has shut its doors since Christmas according to Charles Dunstone, chief executive of Carphone Warehouse. 'Some sizeable chains have gone bankrupt, the networks have cut back their own stores and many mom and pop shops have closed,' he said.

Carphone accounts for 461 of the remaining 3,500 specialist shops in the UK but grew its market share from 12% to 20% in the year to end-March. In a Europe-wide market that fell by 40% last year, Carphone managed to maintain connections at 3.6m.

Since the March year-end, sales have begun to pick up sharply with connections in May, a year after the networks stopped subsidising pre-paid phones, up by 25%. Doubled losses of £14.7m from its 200 stores in Germany and Benelux knocked headline pre-tax profits back by 6% to £46.8m but after £55.1m of exceptional charges, largely for European restructuring, the group swung from pre-tax profits of £47.4m to losses of £29.2m.

Turnover rose 4% to £1.15bn and pre-exceptional earnings per share fell from 5p to 4.4p. It plans to increase its total number of stores across Europe by 100 to more than 1,200 this year.